I decided to help one of my call duck egg hatch, as it was 2 days late and the rest of the eggs hatched. This eggs had no pips, so I slowly made a pip hole, waiting t hours, went back to see if it had complrtrly absorbed all of the blood vessels snd it came out of the egg very weak. It just loed in ghe incubator twitching, now it is in thebbroody twitching, there is a tiny hole, were the yolk sack was absorbed. He cant walk or keep his head up. The duckling is failing to thrive. Any ideas on what is wrong with it? Thank you!
Could be a number of things, but what I can think of based on what I have read is sav-a-chick, some folks put a tiny bit of sugar water up to the bill to try to give the little one a boost, and I know that sometimes there weren't quite enough B vitamins in the egg and ducklings hatch with some deficiencies - so you might add some B complex to water and try to get the little one to sip at that. Have you posted over on the https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/978237/she-said-he-said-whos-right-whos-wrong-no-one
What I do with weak hatchlings it to put them on an egg shaped egg holder to hold the baby in a more "natural" position with its legs curled under it so it can gain muscle strength and coordination gradually as it does during hatching. This will help it start to lift its head and work on balancing on its legs with its body weight supported by the egg shape.
If the duckling is too weak to survive out of the shell then it would have been too weak to hatch and it would have died anyway. The yolk is all the nutrition a baby bird needs so sometimes giving supplements too soon just stresses the body more by trying to put energy into digestion instead of into strengthing the muscles. Rest and warmth are sometimes the best remedies the body has to survive so walking away and giving it time is okay too.
